I have received a Parking Eye County Court Claim Form

Lamo

I have been served with a County Court claim form by ParkingEye.

I received a Parking Charge Notice in March 2013 which Icontested. Parking Eye requested evidence that I shopped in the outlet, asclaimed. I explained that I didn’t have one as the nature of the shoppingoutlet meant I often visited it several times to explore my options beforeeventually making a purchase.

My appeal was rejected and I opted not to appeal to POPLAdue to the low success rate.

I have now been served with a claim form for the originalfine, plus solicitor and court fees.

The shopping outlet has requested a cancellation, but thishas been declined by Parking Eye, apparently on the basis that it has alreadygone to court! The retail outlet is only a tenant and the Parking Eye contractis with the landlord.

I have filed an acknowledgement of service (AOS) andtherefore have 28 days from the date of service to file my defence.

I have read with interest some of the discussions in thisforum and hope I can get some assistance with my defence.

I believe the only chance of a successful defence is if Ican get the case dismissed on a technicality. Therefore, I would be mostgrateful if the experts here can enlighten me on the following:

Firstly, am I right in the belief that the only remedy fornon-compliance with the Practice Direction in the Letter Before Action (LBA), isa stay of action, not resulting in a dismissal of the case? The LBA fromParking Eye is only a brief letter, deficient in many ways and makes no mentionof the Practice Direction.

Secondly, my Penalty Charge Notice is pre May 2013 andpotentially non-compliant. It does not use the term ‘creditor’, but states themethods of payment and to whom payment should be made. Will this not beconstrued as sufficient to identify the creditor as Parking Eye? If not, isthere any case law I can quote to support my defence? I am the RegisteredKeeper.

Thirdly, there is a lot of discussion on POPLA decisions andprecedent. Since POPLA is only an Appeals Service and not a court of law, canits decisions be accepted as precedence in a county court?

Many thanks for your anticipated assistance.

peter_the_piper

""My appeal was rejected and I opted not to appeal to POPLAdue to the low success rate""

I don't know where you got this idea but up till now its currently close to 100% success.
Best of wishes and I am sure someone will help with a defence.

pogofish

Lamo wrote: »

My appeal was rejected and I opted not to appeal to POPLAdue to the low success rate.

Balderdash!

What are you trying to pull?

Coupon-mad

peter_the_piper wrote: »

""My appeal was rejected and I opted not to appeal to POPLAdue to the low success rate""

I don't know where you got this idea but up till now its currently close to 100% success.
Best of wishes and I am sure someone will help with a defence.

Well, we have a forum 100% success rate. Maybe the OP never looked here for advice at the time, which is a huge shame seeing as we would have helped him stuff them at POPLA or simply steered him into an assertive complaint to the CEO of the retailer.

As for a court defence, there are hundreds of cases on pepipoo forum to read and learn from the advice already given, here's one:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=84673

When you have read that one and followed ALL the links from it which I posted as SchoolRunMum there, simply read others starting at page one and clicking on any thread mention 'court, claim or Northampton' in the thread title. Yes it's a bit of work but you will need to be the one to write your own defence, using the info available there.

There is no quick fix apart from reading advice and links we have already collated for the hundreds who need help. Most people's cases NEVER end up in a hearing and this IS NOT A TIME TO FOLD. You have options - you can complain to the retail park and Store Manager about this harassment EVEN WITHOUT RECEIPTS (And frankly you should have done just that in March!). Never too late if you are very assertive with your complaint, look at all these cancelled after Court papers:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4766249

But you also have to acknowledge and submit a defence (hence the pepipoo reading!). And write to PE as well, pointing out your robust defence has been submitted and you are going to cite the recent court loss among other points of defence. And state the fact you've officially complained to the retailer/retail park now and you believe that as agents they are going to have to cancel this as the retailer isn't happy (anything that might make PE backtrack, try it).

Did you not get a Letter before Claim which made you wake up and smell the coffee? See the LBCCC thread and check if your LBCCC was compliant or not.

Lamo

When I got the PCN, I visited this site and others and the predominant opinion was that the PCN was unenforceable and nothing more than an INVOICE and should be IGNORED. However, I decided to contest it as I have done successfully in the past.

Also, I decided not to go to POPLA due to the fact that information I garnered from searching several forums suggested it was a waste of time. If there is a near 100% success rate on this forum, then my research must have been misleading.

I am here for assistance, not to be shot down and will appreciate your support. Many thanks Coupon-Mad. I will research the threads you have advised.

Coupon-mad

Not near 100%. It has been 100% on all cases advised on since Easter.

Such a shame you are now at a difficult stage but you DO have options and most NEVER end up in a hearing, and PE were beaten in Court only this week which you will see among the links & threads. Keep the faith and remember that there are hundreds of cases to learn from, just like yours, on pepipoo - all scared newbies who are seeing these claims off with robust defences and complaints. It's not too late to fight back, just not as easy as POPLA is proving to be.

Lamo

I need help, please.

Based on advice from Coupon-mad, I pursued the course of getting theretailer to cancel the parking ticket. One of the retailers I visited has twicerequested cancellation and has given me evidence to that effect, but ParkingEye has still not cancelled the ticket.

I have drafted a strongly worded letter to Parking Eye, but I am unsure ofhow much of my defence to include in the letter. Do you advise I include asmuch information as possible, including any documentary evidence or will thatbe showing my hands prematurely?

Also, I have noticed that the initial PCN and the LBA had my first andmiddle names, but not my last name. For instance, addressed to Peter ROBERTrather than Peter Robert SMITH. Do you think this is a strong ground to saythey have not been properly served?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Coupon-mad

Do you mean you have already submitted your defence - but that it didn't include the fact that the principal has cancelled this charge so their agent (PE) has no cause of action?

As long as you have submitted a defence (which you MUST) you can send any assertive letter saying 'you will have seen that I have submitted a defence to this claim* and I am writing to tell you that the charge has been cancelled by the retail park. This is as a result of my complaint to them, so you have no cause of action.

I am also aware of recent cases lost by Parking Eye on basics including your legal standing as non-landowners, and your flawed reliance on unsynchronised ANPR timings, and also some interesting irregularities with your witness statements. So if you proceed with this matter I will be more than happy to expose your claim as entirely without merit on a number of issues, and without any backing by the retail park where the driver was shopping that day.'



*you don't have to re-state the defence in your letter.

Copy in the retail park management and the landowner too, so they can see the struggle you are having here as a customer and so they read about PE's losses.




Recent wins against PE, and cases they've dropped due to irregularities here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=62971894&postcount=65

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/parkingeye-caught-out-using-post-dated.html

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/parkingeye-court-losses-mount-up.html

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/parkingeye-drop-case-against-motorist.html

Guys_Dad

Don't think it was the retail Park landowner that asked for a cancellation. One of the tenant retailers.

Lamo

I have prepared my defence, but haven't yet submitted it as I am hoping foradditional ideas from this thread, like the ones coupon-mad has suggested.

The request for cancellation was by a tenant retailer. I do not know who thelandlord is, but I am given to believe it is the local council.

Any input on the PCN and LBA not including my last name?

Coupon-mad

Any input on the PCN and LBA not including my last name?

Fairly irrelevant. They've got that data from the DVLA.